Agent in the Dark (The Agents for Good) (11 page)

She rolled her eyes at me and I chuckled, as I reached for a bowl on a nearby table.

“What’s that?” She asked suspiciously.

I couldn’t help but admit how darned cute she was. I got a spoonful and pushed it in past her reluctant lips. Her face brightened and her lips closed around the spoon, quite ta
king my breath away in the process.

“Applesauce!”
She exclaimed.

“Yeah.”

I fed her spoonful after spoonful with her smiling at me all along. With a speculative gleam in her eyes she stated, “Your brother’s named James and your John. Your mother named you for the apostles?”

“Just my brother.”
I admitted grudgingly.

Her brow knitted up in concentration, “Then who?

The light of comprehension dawned brightly in her eyes, “John the Baptist?”

I nodded and she started giggling. I gave her a dark look, but kept feeding her, just glad inside that she was okay. So what if she was having fun on my account, I still had her, which meant that my world was still okay for now.

“What’s your middle name?” She asked inquisitively.

I didn’t answer.

“Ferdinand?” She asked teasingly.

I gave her a dark look again. She took another bite and then I saw the sudden thought hit her and I groaned inwar
dly.

“No, she couldn’t have!”

“Oh yes she did.” I affirmed remorsefully.

“Baptist?”

I nodded.

She laughed hard then and I did my best to bare it out as best as I could. It was a terrible name, especially for som
ebody like me, John Baptist Kilroy. I would never forgive my parents for it. Sourly, I set the bowl down in her lap and handed her the spoon. She made a real effort to stop laughing then and grabbed a hold of my arm.

“No don’t go! I’m sorry for laughing! Please stay!”

I stayed in the room.

In all we stayed at the little haven in the woods for two weeks, while Asia made a full recovery.

Chapter Eleven

Giving

“He told me once that God hated him and that he hated God in return. I don’t know how to deal with that.” Asia said.

Eli nodded.

Asia looked around as they walked along the pathways of the camp. Over the past two weeks she had grown close to Eli and she had confided a lot in him.

“He’s so bitter and angry! Like an endless well of the stuff. It’s as if it feeds him!”

Eli nodded, “Did you perhaps consider that his words are a clue to something else other than what they say?”

“What do you mean?”

“We both know that God does not hate people. He sent His only Son to die for them, for us. That isn’t an act of hate. He hates the sin not the person. So take away John’s first statement of God hating him and what do you have?”

“He hates God?” Asia said not understanding.

“How can he hate God without first having a relationship with God? Hate is a very powerful thing and sometimes it manifests itself in the form of a cover-up for a deeper underlying issue.” Eli said.

“Like what?”

“I’m just speculating here, but perhaps John is guilty or thinks he’s guilty of something that he thinks is so bad that he thinks God must hate him for it. Imagine where that would leave a person. Do you think you’d ever have any hope of anything getting better in your life if you thought God hated you? Every negative action of life would only reinforce your belief that you’re hated. What would your reaction be, but to hate back in return, because of how unjustly loved you feel yourself to be.”

Asian nodded, “But what do I do besides pray for him?”

“Love him! The more love he receives from you the more he’ll yearn for a deeper love that only God can fill.”

“But I don’t love him!” Asia exclaimed.

“You don’t? It seems like you’ve done a lot, sacrificed a lot for a man you don’t love.”

“I was just trying to please God! He asked me to give of m
yself so I did!”

“When did God tell you to stop?” Eli interjected softly.

Asia stopped with tears in her eyes, “This is hard! I’m being forced to give, give, give and all I feel like is I’m going to get chewed up by him and destroyed if I’m not careful. What’s he giving? Why do I have to be poured out in the sand for his pleasure? What did I do wrong? Why am I being tested like this?”

Eli stared at her, even as he loved her for her honesty, “I imagine that Queen Esther faced much the same problem, as you are right now. Look what her sacrifice led her to acco
mplish. I don’t mean to push the weight down hard on you, but to each of us falls the responsibility of making the decisions that we’re faced with in our generation. It’s not easy, but perhaps you were born for such a time as this. Who can tell what reward your faithfulness will achieve? Esther saved her people, perhaps you will to.”

Asia wiped at the tears on her face, “You really know how to hammer down the responsibility Reverend.”

“I’m sorry.” Eli said.

Asia reached out and squeezed his arm smiling briefly, “Don’t be. You’re right; it’s just hard to accept.”

They walked on for a ways. Eli glanced over at her speculatively, “You know he came by this morning to ask a favor of me.”

Asia looked surprised at that, “What did he want?”

“He asked
, if I would marry you both before you start out in the morning. He said he thought you’d like things better, if there was something more official between the two of you so you didn’t feel like you were sinning or something as he put it.”

Asia pushed a strand of hair behind an ear, “What did you tell him?”

“I told him I’d do it provided that you were in agreement with it.”

Asia looked out at the forest and nodded her head, “Yes, I’m in agreement.”

Asia was being very quiet. I glanced back to see her sta
ring at the ring on her finger. The ring had been unplanned, but had worked out well I thought. An old widow had stepped forward at the ceremony and pushed the ring into the palm of Asia’s hand. The old woman had said, “I used to have small fingers like you darling. Here take this and I pray you have as much happiness wearing it as I did.”

We were official now and it felt odd. Asia had kept her assumed name in place of her Japanese one, which I was quite fine with, Asia Kilroy. I could only imagine how my brother and Chantry would crow over me when they found out.

Why was she so quiet? If I had to say a word to describe her attitude it would be apprehensive. It dawned on me suddenly. She’d thought I’d used our marriage, as a way of short-circuiting our deal! That hadn’t been the reason and I would prove it to her. That evening I made two beds away from each other, even though it killed me to do it.

She watched me closely, but said nothing. After dinner I retired to my bed never saying a word to her. If she wanted to play the silent game than so be it, but I missed our easy-going almost friendship relationship of the past two weeks. In some ways I felt like I’d ruined it somehow by marrying her. All I’d been trying to do was please her.

I startled awake to find Asia kneeling beside me. I rubbed at my eyes; it had to be one or two in the morning! Quickly I
scanned her hands for any glint of a knife. What was she up to? I couldn’t see her face clearly in the dark.

“Why did you go through a marriage ceremony?”

Didn’t Eli tell you why?”

“I want to hear it from you.” Asia said.

“I didn’t want anybody to think bad of you or you of yourself. Quite frankly, you deserve a lot more than what you’re getting and giving you my name was the least I could do for messing your life up.”

She was quiet for a moment but then spoke, “That’s very caring of you John.”

“I’m not completely heartless.”

Her hand on my face was startling, “No, you’re not John.” And then she was kissing me.

Okay this was really good! I wanted to take over, but something bade me give her the time to experiment. So I contented myself with meeting her kisses passionately, but with reserve. I should have just taken her, because after a hot hour filled with her breathy kisses she was suddenly gone, while I lay there achingly awake for the rest of the night.

What a lousy day! What a lousy wedding night! Everything was lousy and on top of it all it looked like it was about to rain. Worst of all I was about to break my promise so help me.

This morning Asia had acted like nothing had happened last night. She’d insisted on learning how to navigate with a compass today and so she was in the front leading the way,
every blessed sensuous inch of her. Bending, twisting, arching, and shifting side to side in evident feminine display.

I mopped at the sweat running down my face. It hurt just to walk. Never had I gone through such agony and restraint for a woman! I stopped and bent over with my hands on my knees in a crisis of urge and a battle of consciousness.

“John?”

I got a grip on my rampant thoughts and straightened back up not looking at her, “Stay here, while I go take care of something.”

“John.”

I forced myself to look at her. She was shifting from one foot to the other wringing her hands.

“I’m sorry! I chickened out on you last night. I got scared. We can do it now if you want.”

I glanced away from her out into the forest. She was finally giving me what I wanted. I sighed. It was an overpowering urge to take her up on her offer, but it wouldn’t be the smart thing to do right now. The plane couldn’t be much more than a brisk five hours walk from here.

I needed to get her to safety. That had to be my first pr
iority and stopping now, when we were so close to attaining that safety, was foolish. When I had her on my island, then I would be free to enact every torrid fantasy I’d dreamed up with her.

There was another reason why I needed to refuse right now too. Anything between us now would be both brief and
brutal on her and I didn’t want her to experience me in that way. Not her first time with me anyway. I shook my head softly, in self acknowledgment, of how much she’d already changed me inside. I was actually going to say no to myself, because I wanted something better for her.

“I’ll take you up on that offer, when we’re on the island. The planes not far from here and we need to get out of here before anything else happens. I’ll be right back.” I turned to go, but her hand on my arm stopped me. I met her gaze and was struck by the sincerity of hers.

“I want to help you John! Please let me!” She hesitated slightly, as her eyes bounced around a little, “There’s something else I could do.”

Without further words she sank down to her knees and her shaking fingers fumbled with my belt. This was so wrong somehow to let this good Christian girl do this, even though I had wanted this very thing of her. My hands closed over hers, but she tugged in order to be free.

She looked up at me, “Please let me do this for you John.”

“Why?” I asked beyond any understanding of how she thought.

Her eyes were deep pools of mystery, as she responded, “Because I’ve made up my mind to love you unconditionally, in whatever way you need, despite whatever you may be or ever do.”

There couldn’t be anybody else like this woman in the whole world! I let go of her hands.

The sun was coming up, in a truly beautiful sunrise b
ehind us, but I didn’t give it even so much as a passing glance. I watched her instead. She was asleep in the copilot’s chair. The walk had been more like six hours the previous day to the plane and it had been well after dark, when we had reached it. The plane had remained undiscovered and for that I was grateful. I hadn’t waited, but had fired it up and taken off in the dark almost wiping out on some lofty treetops at the end of the runway. I’d flown westward through the night, as she’d fallen asleep beside me.

Her face twitched. She was waking up and I hurriedly glanced away, as her eyes opened to stare at me.

“Good morning.” She said softly.

“Good morning.” I responded truly meaning it.

She straightened up in her seat and I handed her an apple. She smiled her appreciation and bit into it greedily. It was a fantasy just to watch her eat.

Despite the considerable depth of knowledge the Asia a
lready possessed, she was always eager to learn more. I gave into her pestering about how to fly easily, even let her fly the plane for a while under close supervision, before I put it back on autopilot. We’d been quiet for a while and I studied her under the guise of pretending not to.

“What you did for me yesterday was that the first time you ever did that for a guy?” I asked.

I watched her face blush red, as she nodded, still staring out at the horizon ahead of us.

“It was unbelievably sweet and yet at the same time very hot what you did for me. Thank you Asia.” I said earnestly.

She glanced over at me a little breathlessly, “I’m glad you liked it.”

She went back to looking out the windshield at the hor
izon and I joined her.